On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:17 AM, John McCabe-Dansted <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 5:17 PM, Alan Pope <
[hidden email]> wrote:
>> When the Ubuntu project was started, the sounder list was a place
>> where new ideas and fun things like 'Ubuntu sightings' were discussed
>> - it was the first mailing list you would read in the mornings.
>> However nowadays I don't believe this list is serving its purpose &
>> isn't helpful to the project. It only serves to allow a small set of
>> people to argue about subjects very tenuously related to Ubuntu, or
>> unrelated at all. The Ubuntu project doesn't need this list anymore.
>
> OK, Ubuntu doesn't *need* the list, but I don't see why Ubuntu needs
> to delete this list either.
>
> Apparently some people think the list is useful. Some don't. If there
> is no cost to maintaining sounder then keeping sounder is at *worst*
> harmless. I presume this issue it brought up because there is some
> form of cost to maintaining the list. I imagione the direct financial
> cost of running sounder is so small as to be negligible.
>
>> If anyone has an opinion / counter proposal I would recommend they
>> turn up to the next CC meeting where it can be discussed.
>
> The obvious counter proposal is do nothing. It is hard to suggest a
> counter proposal without knowing what problem closing sounder is meant
> to solve.
Let's just analyze the last 20 topics posted to the list, to see if
Alan's initial assumtion: that "the list now serves as a way for a few
people to argue about subjects only tertiarily related to ubuntu",
oldest activity first.
1)Four Reasons Firefox 4 can make a go of it--And one reason why it
can't.: 1 participant, 1 message, relevant to ubuntu (since firefox is
ubuntu's default browser), completely civil
2)Firefox Bags 1 Million Downloads in 3 Hours: 4 participants, 5
messages, relevant to ubuntu, completely civil.
3) GLSlideshow: 6 participants, 10 messages, relevant to ubuntu,
completely civil.
4) Apple to copyright individual letters: 3 participants, 3 messages,
amusing satire related to computers and intellectual property.
Completely civil.
5) Unity is made of fail: 3 participants, 4 messages, relevant to
ubuntu, completely civil.
6) Open source's UI handicap explains Google's Honeycomb move: 1
participant, 1 message, relevant article about linux & oss. completely
civil.
7) The battle rages on............: 1 participant, 1 message, relevant
article about ubuntu. completely civil.
8) Tips for trying the Natty beta in a VM: 2 participants, 3 messages,
relevant to ubuntu. completely civil.
9) maloader: Mach-0 Loader for Linux: 2 participants, 2 messages,
relevant to linux, completely civil.
10) Sorry guys,: 2 participants, 2 messages, apology for list
etiquette, completely civil
11) Ubuntu 11.10 makes Unity compulsory: over 170 messages, at least a
dozen participants. originally a discussion of the desktop switch in
natty, diverges into a political/philosophical debate after about 15
messages when mint leader's purported "anti-semitic" comments are
raised. Mostly civil, with the first somewhat incivil message posted
by: Alan Pope! *gasp* (though it was "on topic,"
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2011-April/016111.html )
12) Good Article About Unity: 3 participants, 3 messages, relevant to
ubuntu, completely civil.
13) Problems Linux Enthusiasts Refuse to Address: 10 participants, 37
messages, relevant to linux in general, completely civil.
14) Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 1 Review and First Impressions: 1 participant, 1
message, relevant to ubuntu, completely civil
15) GNOME 3 released; Ubuntu GNOME remix announced: 6 particpants, 6
messages, relevant to ubuntu, completely civil
16) Don't Know Whether To Laugh Or Cry About This One: 3 participants,
4 messages, microsoft bashing, completely civil
17) Now apologise for America, Britain told: 14 participants, 30
messages, irrelevant amusement, mostly civil.
18) 20 Years of Linux down, and the best is yet to come, 1
participant, 1 message, relevant to linux, completely civil
19) Polyglots are better Linux users ;-): 2 participants, messages,
not really relevant but an attempt to bring calm to the out of control
religious discussion, completely civil
20)[ADMIN] [ANNOUNCE] This list: 13 participants, 19 messages, list
meta thread. mostly civil.
NOW FOR THE ANALYSIS OF THE CLAIM:
================================
There seems to be only about 20-25 active list posters. 20 is more
than a few, by most standards it would be called "several." But the
number is not large relative to other list communities. So the claim
that it serves a small number of people may be accurate, however what
is unknown is the number of passive subscribers.
Looking at the list above we have 20 topics. 9 of them are directly
relevant to ubuntu (at least at initial posting), 6 releavant to linux
or computing in general, 3 meta posts and 1 completely off-topic
thread. One thread started directly relevant and went haywire. but
even if we don't count that one, by topics we're at a 90% relevance
rate by-thread. even if we go by post, the relevance rate is pretty
close to 50% (although a huge number of the irrelevant posts were
generated by 2 users). The claim that the list is primarily used for
topics "only tertiarily related to ubuntu." is at best a half-truth.
A larger sample than 20 threads would probably be better for
establishing this.
Now for argument. While many of the threads have varying levels of
disagreement, the term "argue" implies contentiousness or incivility.
as shown, the 20 most recently active topics have been either
completely or mostly civil. On a per message basis, you can see that
the level of incivil posts is close to 6% of posts, again with most of
those being generated by two problem users.
Conclusion: While religoius/political discussions get out of hand and
generate a lot of traffic between a few users, they don't represent
the bulk of the list traffic. Over 90% of both messages and users are
completely civil and non-argumentative. Most of the topics posted,
and the general traffic of the list, is in fact related quite directly
to ubuntu, linux/oss, or computing in a larger context.
In other words, the only justification for closing the list that I can
see is that a few bad apples have spoiled the bunch.
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